NEW YORK – Jeff Hornacek has problems. He did before the Knicks traveled to Cleveland and were embarrassed Tuesday night in a 117-88 season-opening rout, but that beating magnified them. Derrick Rose missed 16 days, nine practices and five preseason games (successfully) fighting a civil sexual assault charge and is still getting up to speed. Carmelo Anthony began this season as he has begun many, scoring (19 points) but not passing much (three assists). And no player seems comfortable in Hornacek’s triangle-hybrid offense.

Yet no issue figures to be more important than this: How does the Knicks’ coach foster the development of second-year big man Kristaps Porzingis? How, on a team with a pair of ball-dominating stars, can Hornacek ensure Porzingis doesn’t get lost in the shuffle?

Scroll to continue with content Ad

Last year was a breakout for the Knicks forward. Booed on draft night, Porzingis quickly became a fan favorite. At 7-foot-3 and 240-pounds, Porzingis emerged as a matchup nightmare. He had the size to post up smaller players and the perimeter skills to decimate bigger ones. Porzingis faded down the stretch — his shooting percentage dipped from 42.6 percent before the All-Star break to 40.8 percent after and his three-point percentage went from 34.9 percent to 29.4 percent — but his final line (14.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks) earned him a runner-up spot for NBA Rookie of the Year.

Is Kristaps Porzingis' best position at center? (Getty Images)

Story continues

Expectations are high for Porzingis this season, with the usual offseason conditioning improvements — Porzingis packed on seven pounds from the end of last season and dedicated the summer to strengthening his lower body — coupled with the natural progression of his skills, some scouts are predicting an All-Star honor. Much of that will depend on Hornacek, who admits he’s never seen a player with Porzingis’ size and skill set.

“I played with a guy named Alvin Adams [with Phoenix in the 1980s], to go way back, and Alvin wasn’t 7 foot, but he was a shooting center,” Hornacek told The Vertical. “He didn’t shoot threes, but he could get up and down the court, block shots, really pass the ball. [Porzingis] though is a unique guy. You can find 7-foot guys who like to shoot threes — I played with [7-7] Manute Bol, he liked to shoot threes. But he couldn’t get up and down the court. KP is a different type of player.”

Improving Porzingis’ post play has been a major point of emphasis for Hornacek early. Last season teams regularly deployed smaller players on Porzingis — the Celtics, for example, utilized 6-4 guard Marcus Smart on him — essentially daring Porzingis to beat them in the post. When teams do that this season, Hornacek wants Porzingis to make them pay.

“The thing we need to get him to do more of is when there is an advantage, he has to take it,” Hornacek said. “Teams have already tried to go small on him. He needs to be patient and take them down in the post area. He’s worked on his post turnaround game. When they put a small guy on him, he can shoot over the top of them. Finding that balance is important.”

With Porzingis, rival coaches share two concerns. First, the triangle. Hornacek deployed the triangle sporadically during the preseason, and while theoretically the offense could create more post opportunities for Porzingis, it has the potential to take away Porzingis’ ability to create mismatches.

“Think of it this way, if I know he’s going to one spot, I can prepare for that,” said an Eastern Conference assistant coach. “Where [Porzingis] is really scary is when he’s all over the floor. He’s hard to prepare for that way.”

Then there is Porzingis’ position. As a power forward, Porzingis is dangerous, but his quickness and shooting ability are more easily defended and his perimeter defense can be a liability, as it was in the ugly outing against Cleveland Tuesday night. As a center, Porzingis can be lethal, a mismatch nightmare comparable to Dirk Nowitzki in his early days in Dallas, but with rim-protecting skills Nowitzki never had. The Knicks, though, inked Joakim Noah to a four-year, $72 million contract last summer, a perplexing decision that effectively ensures that Porzingis will share the floor with the former All-Star center.

Asked about Porzingis’ long-term position, Hornacek was diplomatic.

“I’m sure he can do both,” Hornacek said. “The way this league is going, a lot of shooting fives, that might be it. We like to have the size in there with Joakim Noah, a great defensive player, and we hope the combination of those two will help protect the basket. It’s good to have the versatility.”

The Knicks arrived in camp brimming with optimism. The additions of Rose and Noah added star power, and Hornacek’s Phoenix teams ranked in the top 10 in pace in each of his three seasons, suggesting an effective up-tempo offense could be on the way. But a rocky training camp indicates success could be a ways off. Regardless, the development of Porzingis must be paramount. At 21, Porzingis is the franchise, the carrot New York can use to lure free agents in the future.

Offensive touches will be at a premium, and Hornacek must make sure Porzingis gets his.

“I don’t think we worry about that,” Hornacek said. “We talk to our guys. This team has more talent on it. If [an opponent] focuses on one guy, someone might get to 15-20 shots some night, someone might get it another. You are going to have your main guys, and KP is one of them. I don’t ever see him getting just three or four shots. Some of the other guys might. He might get 18-20. If we’re moving the ball, everyone is going to get shots.”

The Jazz are being patient with Dante Exum. (Getty Images)

THREE POINTS

3. The Jazz are happy to have Dante Exum back

Exum, 21, remembers how he felt in the weeks before suffering a season-ending left knee injury last summer. “Confident,” Exum, the fifth overall pick in the 2014 draft, told The Vertical. “I had worked so hard on my game. When I had the ball, I wanted to get to the rim, get fouled and score. I wanted to draw contact. I felt so much stronger than I did [the previous season].”

That confidence vanished last August, when Exum, playing for the Australian national team, tore his ACL attempting a simple jump stop. Immediately, Exum felt fear wash over him. “I remember being on the floor and everything just going blank,” Exum said. “Everything was going so well, the end of the season, summer league. I wondered if it would ever be the same.”

The Jazz badly missed Exum last season. The lanky, 6-6 point guard is a big part of Utah’s promising young core and a rising defender. “His size, his athleticism defending the ball was something we really missed,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder told The Vertical. “That was something we just couldn’t replicate.” Still, the Jazz were determined to bring Exum back slowly. And instead of playing, Utah asked Exum to target specific areas of his game. The coaching staff tweaked his release point. When he was cleared to shoot, they pushed him to hone his midrange game. “He’s so quick, he has always been able to slash and go to the rim,” Snyder said. “We wanted him to really work on his perimeter shooting.”

Like many recovering from knee injuries, Exum struggled to develop confidence in his surgically repaired ligament. That changed in two pivotal moments. Last June, playing three-on-three, Exum attempted the same move that caused the injury. A month later, Exum, who had been consciously avoiding landing on his left knee, came down on it after a dunk.

“After that,” Exum said, “everything felt good.”

Expectations for Exum are measured. He played eight minutes in the Jazz’s opener Tuesday, backing up starters George Hill and Rodney Hood. Exum believes he has surpassed where he was in the weeks before the injury, while Snyder believes in time Exum will be able to regain his lost momentum. Snyder cited a defensive possession in the preseason, where Exum chased a defender into the corner, then followed the ball back to the high end of the floor and blocked a shot.

“Right now, he’s basically a second-year player,” Snyder said. “He’s getting there. The focus for him is on continuing to improve. Not just physically, but mentally. The one thing that is great about Dante: He is an excellent listener. He wants to know why, not because he is resisting, but because he wants to know why. When he does understand, he internalizes it quickly. He’s not afraid to make mistakes, and he’s not afraid to fail.”

Joel Embiid drives past Russell Westbrook on Wednesday night. (AP)

2. Get ready for Joel Embiid

Of all the predictions made in the NBA’s general manager survey, this was one of the most perplexing: In projecting the NBA Rookie of the Year, Sixers center Joel Embiid finished fourth, behind teammate Ben Simmons, New Orleans’ Buddy Hield and Minnesota’s Kris Dunn. Perhaps executives were fearful that Embiid’s twice surgically repaired foot wouldn’t hold up. Or perhaps they forgot how good Embiid, the third overall pick in the ’14 draft who missed his first two seasons because of injury, really was.

Everyone in the NBA was reminded on Wednesday, when Embiid, making his Sixers debut 854 days after he was drafted, posted 20 points, seven rebounds and two blocks in 22 minutes in a loss to Oklahoma City. To ease Embiid back, coach Brett Brown has him on a minutes restriction: 20 minutes (give or take) that he breaks up into five-minute-per-quarter shifts. Embiid put a dream shake on Andre Roberson, swished a top-of-the-key three in front of Steven Adams and came across the lane in split seconds to swat away a shot from Russell Westbrook. After the game, Thunder coach Billy Donovan said Embiid “has a lot of [Hakeem] Olajuwon in him.”

The Sixers are enthused about Embiid’s offensive potential, but the hope is that his defense is his immediate hallmark. Brown, a former assistant in San Antonio, spent years watching the impact Tim Duncan had anchoring the Spurs’ defense and is hoping Embiid can eventually have a similar impact. Brown calls Embiid the “crown jewel” and the “centerpiece” of Philadelphia’s defense, and has shared stories with Embiid about how Duncan’s ability to control the paint freed up perimeter defenders to be more physical.

Embiid will remain on a minutes limit; he went from 15 to 18 in the preseason, and Brown said this week that Embiid was “locked in” at 20 for now. But with Philadelphia’s frontcourt ravaged by injury — Ben Simmons is out following foot surgery, Nerlens Noel is rehabbing a surgically repaired left knee and Jahlil Okafor is being eased back in after knee soreness limited him in training camp — Embiid will eventually get plenty of opportunities to showcase the talent that once made him the most appealing NBA prospect in college basketball.

1. For Boston, a big year for player development

Lost in the euphoria of Boston signing Al Horford last summer was the free-agent defection of Evan Turner, a reliable reserve who emerged as one of the best sixth men in the league last season. Turner was a trusted member of coach Brad Stevens’ rotation, a playmaker who thrived in the midrange (46.3 percent) with the creativity to dig Boston’s bench out of ruts. Turner’s absence was felt in Boston’s season opener Wednesday against Brooklyn, when the Celtics’ bench failed to hold a 23-point fourth-quarter lead, forcing Stevens to re-insert his starters late in the game to preserve the win.

In fairness, Boston was without guard Marcus Smart, out with an ankle injury, who is expected to play an enhanced role this season. But it underscores a larger point: To take a step forward this season – and for the Celtics, that at least means a trip to the second round – Boston needs its core of young players – Smart, Terry Rozier, Jaylen Brown — to improve rapidly.

Stevens is one of the NBA’s most respected coaches, but the development of Boston’s young players has been spotty. R.J. Hunter, a first-round pick in 2015, was waived on Monday. James Young, a 2014 first-round pick, beat out Hunter, but Young is not expected to last past this season. Smart, the sixth overall pick in 2014, has shown promise, but is coming off one of the worst three-point shooting seasons in NBA history (25.3 percent on four attempts per game) and he connected on just 13.6 percent of his threes in the preseason.

While Smart is considered the most talented of Boston’s young backcourt, Celtics officials have gushed over the improvement of Terry Rozier. A polarizing 2015 first-round pick, Rozier shot 54 percent from the floor, 60 percent from three and finished the preseason with a 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. If Rozier, Smart and Brown take steps forward, Boston has a strong chance to grab the No. 2 seed in the East.

More NBA coverage from The Vertical: